Mike Lawson, who owns the beachy American eatery Barn 34 in Ocean City, Maryland learned firsthand three years ago why Washingtonians like to get out of town during the summer. He drove into Bethesda for a June funeral, and arrived late at night. The next morning, he stepped out of his hotel and was hit by a wave of muggy heat.
“I went, ‘Oh my god, no wonder they flock to the beach,'” he says.
Lawson, who closed his restaurant in mid-March, as Ocean City shut down due to coronavirus concerns, says he and his staff normally look forward to the time when on a busy summer weekend, the town’s population, which is just under 7,000, swells to a bustling 300,000. But this year they are afraid, too.
“We’re all anxious to get open and start making money,” he says. “And then on the other side, we’re scared to death of this damn virus.”
Ocean City, like many beach towns in the Mid-Atlantic region, is a popular travel destination for Washingtonians in the summer months, when D.C. gets too sticky and sweaty to bear. Mayor Rick Meehan announced earlier this week that the town would reopen its beach and boardwalk on May 9, which have been closed for over a month. Days later, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced that state parks and beaches could reopen, as part of the state’s initial step towards easing restrictions.
But Ocean City is among a number of nearby beach towns struggling to figure out their plans as summer approaches, and annual gatherings on beaches and boardwalks could prove dangerous. Like so many other communities around the country, they’re weighing the damage a shutdown could cause for their local economies with the health risks the virus poses to residents and visitors.
At 69, Lawson is at increased risk for complications from the virus, and he’s worried for his wife, who owns the restaurant with their son and had a heart valve put in two years ago. At the same time, he’s had to lay off his entire 24-person staff, which normally increases to about 50 during the summer. After receiving a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program, he was able to start hiring employees back.
He’s in the process of setting up the restaurant’s carryout system, but many unknowns remain about how the next coming weeks and months will play out.
Mayor Meehan said this week during a briefing that social distancing measures will remain in place. He also said that the reopening does not supersede Hogan’s stay-at-home order, but that while he expects Maryland residents to comply, Ocean City police will not be inspecting license plates or otherwise barring out of town visitors. “Quite honestly, they’ve probably been coming here already,” he added, WTOP reported.
Meehan’s office did not immediately respond to DCist’s request for an interview.
In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, the city’s communication director, says they are awaiting direction from the top. “Everyone wants a date and time, but we just don’t have that,” Krys Johnson says. “We’re going by what Governor [John] Carney says.”
Normally, Memorial Day weekend is their big summer kick-off, and weather permitting, marks the start of the Rehoboth Beach Bandstand summer concert series. Instead, those shows have been canceled through at least July, and the city will remain largely locked down.
Johnson says Rehoboth Beach is planning to discuss its reopening plan during a May 12 commissioners meeting, but will take its cues from Carney. The governor announced this week that the first phase of the state’s reopening plan would tentatively begin June 1, though the state will take some smaller steps as it is able before then.
In North Carolina’s Outer Banks, local officials are also following the lead of Governor Roy Cooper, who has already begun the process of reopening the state.
The area had previously barred both visitors and non-resident property owners from entering, but Dare County (which includes the towns of Kill Devil Hills, Manteo, and Southern Shores) began easing restrictions for the latter group this week.
Bobby Outten, the manager and attorney of Dare County, says the county will begin welcoming visitors again May 16.
In a joint statement this week, officials from the Outer Banks counties of Dare, Hyde, and Currituck said opening next week would give businesses time to prepare for visitors and adjust their operations to comply with state guidelines, which continue to limit groups of people to 10 or less and require restaurants to offer take-out and delivery only, among other rules.
As of now, the number of COVID-19 cases in the area remain relatively low, with 24 confirmed cases in all three combined, according to the latest count from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Outten says the area relies almost entirely on visitors to stay afloat, and that roughly 300,000 people pass through Dare County per week during the summer. “We have a pretty good fishing industry here and we’ve got a pretty good boat building industry here,” he says. “But the reality is that the bulk of our economy is our tourism industry.”
Maxine Minar, the communications director for Eastern Shore Vacation Rentals and Vantage Vacation Rentals, understands those economic considerations. More than half of her coworkers have been furloughed as a result of a sharp decline in cancellations over the last month or so, though she could not provide an exact percentage. “It’s been tough,” she says.
The companies, which manage over 300 properties for private owners with houses and condos across Maryland’s Eastern Shore alone, as well as other nearby beaches, have been reworking their cancellation policies, and working with customers on a case-by-case basis to help them change their plans.
However, since Ocean City’s announcement last week, Minar says they have seen an uptick in interest. She adds that they’re doing business differently, altering check-in and check-out times to allow more time for cleaning crews to disinfect properties, and asking guests to sign a waiver disclosing whether they have recently been sick or exposed to COVID-19.
Though the summer might look different, she expects business will gradually pick back up, especially as broader reopening dates are announced, and thinks there could be a surge in July or August. “I think there’s a lot of people that just want a change of scenery,” she says. “Even if you’re having to do [take-out], you’re sitting on a balcony looking at the ocean. That’s a little bit nicer than maybe sitting in your apartment or your home.”
Still, Johnson says, the medical systems in small towns like Rehoboth Beach don’t have the capacity to handle spike in in COVID-19 cases that could result from an influx in visitors. “We have a very small health care system,” she says. “If a lot of people come here, our health care system cannot handle that.”
Johnson notes that Sussex County, where Rehoboth Beach is located, has recently seen an increase in cases, though Delaware Online has reported that the jump is likely the result of a large-scale testing done last week.
Partly for that reason, officials in other small beach communities are hesitant to reopen.
Patrick “Irish” Mahoney, the mayor of Chesapeake Beach, a nearly 6,000-person town on Maryland’s Western Shore, says he won’t open any public amenities, including the town’s popular water park, until he can gauge the success of steps like those Meehan is taking in Ocean City. He began canceling events in early March and plans to to err on the side of caution for the foreseeable future.
“While I was ahead of the pack in taking measures [to close down],” he says, “now I’m going to be at the rear of the pack in opening up.”
Lawson is concerned that even if he is able to reopen at some point this summer, a potential surge in cases in the fall would force him to close again. He’s already warned his staff that he may have to lay them off a second time. “I said, ‘Just know that now, that this is not over,'” he says.
Tourists usually account for the majority of Barn 34’s customers during the summer, but he expects that even if Ocean City reopens fully, the fear of getting sick will keep some visitors away. “I strongly suspect there are going to be a lot of people who are going to spend their summers in the backyard.”
